Social Media

Tumblr is the one social platform taking action ahead of Trump's America

As Facebook grapples with its fake news problem, and Twitter continues to fall short in trying to curb hate speech and trolls, one social network is actively helping its users take action while a Trump administration looms: Tumblr.

In the aftermath of the election, the social platform has launched Action on Tumblr, a hub to elevate marginalized voices, educate users on timely political and social issues, and provide resources that can lead to real impact — online and off.

Angled as "a go-to safe home for agents of change," Action on Tumblr invites the platform's audience — generally young, socially conscious users — to engage with experts, advocates and each other on topics affecting their communities.

The new hub focuses on two of Tumblr's popular recurring features, but with a post-election twist. The Q&A format Answer Time allows individual activists and people from marginalized communities to tell their stories. A new spinoff, Issue Time, presents a panel of experts and advocates to answer questions around a particular issue, from gun violence prevention and immigration reform to women's rights and LGBTQ equality.

Users can also take to the "Ask Box" feature or post with the hashtag #takeaction, to share what they're doing to create change in their own communities.

Image: Tumblr

"We have a very woke crowd on Tumblr," Victoria McCullough, social impact and public policy manager at Tumblr, told Mashable. "We saw a lot of activity in that community over the election, and have since we've been around. What we wanted with Action was to try to add a little more volume to that conversation by creating a space."

McCullough calls Action on Tumblr a "one-stop shop" for, more than anything, lifting up voices of people in at-risk communities. That especially includes women, people of color, immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ folks — those afraid, angry and fighting because of President-elect Donald Trump's harmful rhetoric throughout his campaign, and the resulting harassment and discrimination after his win.

"We knew we had to use individuals who were especially aware and really educating their user base to help."

For Tumblr, where movements like #BlackOutDay and Black Lives Matter began, it was important to build a home for information, education and mobilization after the election.

"We just kept hearing from people that they didn't know what to do," McCullough said. "It was like, 'Oh, I voted, I feel like I did my part, but now I don't know where to go.' ... We knew we had to use individuals who were especially aware and really educating their user base to help."

Tumblr's first Answer Time after the election, in partnership with Refinery29, was with an undocumented immigrant from the Philippines who called herself "Fiona." She's a DREAMer, meaning she has conditional residency under the DREAM Act because she moved to the U.S. before she turned 16. But she and her family are worried what will happen after Trump takes office.

Fiona answered a range of questions, from "Do you consider yourself an American?" to a terrified LGBTQ woman of color now wondering, "What do I do?"

Some questions revealed misinformation about undocumented immigrants that many Americans have, showing the education aspect of the platform that Tumblr hoped for. One anonymous user asked, "How does it feel knowing you don't have to pay taxes despite millions of hardworking Americans having to?" Fiona used it as an opportunity to explain that she does pay taxes, and in answers to several similar questions, explained how and why.

McCullough said Fiona answered questions for two hours, instead of the typical one hour, because so many people kept writing in from places of fear or anger. Even though she didn't have all the answers, Fiona was able to speak from her experience, which was especially powerful.

"It was one of their voices," McCullough said. "It wasn't a politician, it wasn't an advocacy group. It was just someone coming from a real, genuine place."

The selection process for people to lead Answer Times can come together rather quickly, since the franchise revolves around individual activists. McCullough and her team reach out to people who are particularly engaged on Tumblr already, finding people like trans activist Angelica Ross and women from the site MuslimGirl.

For Issue Time, however, which Tumblr created to arm people with information that could help them mobilize around a certain topic, the process can take anywhere from two weeks to a month to find the right people to join a panel.

That's especially true for issues that could veer more clinical or medical, like a recent Issue Time on abortion access and reproductive rights. Using her background in government and advocacy, McCullough reached out to friends and former colleagues in that space to find people who were doing important work and had the right expertise.

"Issue Time gives you straight answers from people representing all kinds of identities."

"We had a really strong group of panelists," she said, "ranging from a 70-year-old woman who's been in this movement for a very long time and came at it from the legal perspective, down to a young trans activist who had an abortion in the last year and is a part of the movement that encourages young women to just tell their stories."

That young trans activist is Jack Qu'emi, an Afrx-Boricua writer who works with We Testify, a program of the National Network of Abortion Funds that aims to increase "the spectrum of abortion storytellers in the public sphere."

Qu'emi (who uses the pronouns they, them and their) first joined Tumblr in 2010, hoping to create an online journal to help as they struggled with mental health. They said Tumblr helped foster a community of people with marginalized identities talking about the inequalities they faced when social networks like Facebook and Twitter couldn't.

"Tumblr gives space for more expression," Qu'emi told Mashable in an email. "You have a page, a layout, you have an Ask Box that can be anonymous or not, you have submissions, and you can add commentary to other people's posts. It just gives a person more room to express who they are, and lets other 'followers' experience someone more thoroughly."

Participating in the abortion access Issue Time was "pretty freakin' great," said Qu'emi, who loves the franchise as a whole.

"The things I see featured on there are always timely and relevant to current events," they said. "You see a lot of 'fake news' on other timelines, but Issue Time gives you straight answers from people representing all kinds of identities."

In the aftermath of the election, Qu'emi said Tumblr has been a place for marginalized communities to share their fears. But, more importantly, it's served as a way to share support.

"Within 12 hours of the election results, people made posts saying they were offering emotional support as individuals or sharing hotlines you could call," they said. "There’s a lot of strength in marginalized communities that I don’t think we get enough credit for. Tumblr has given us space to reach one another in ways we couldn’t have fathomed before."

While Action on Tumblr is a great space for progressive users to connect, as part of the "woke" community McCullough talked about, it runs the risk of becoming the same "bubble" of like-minded people that Facebook was throughout the presidential campaign. How can Tumblr reach who need to hear these messages most?

"Social media could have a greater impact by making sure we're not being the echo chamber."

"I've wrestled with this, on such a personal and professional level," McCullough said. "I think a lot of woke up [on Nov. 9] and thought, how are we going to fight back? Because it was so clear that social media could have a greater impact by making sure we're not being the echo chamber."

When Action on Tumblr launched, one of the first messages they received was from a progressive voter, saying they genuinely wanted to learn why a Trump supporter voted the way they did.

"I feel like I want to use that as a guide for everything we do moving forward ... We do look like this young, millennial, sort of progressive community, but that's not everybody on this platform. So, how do we bridge that gap between those communities who maybe feel very far from each other right now?" McCullough said.

She hopes to feature a range of voices and perspectives in the future, and will continue to feature nonprofit, bipartisan experts and organizations on Issue Time panels.

In the first 48 hours since Action on Tumblr launched, without much promotion, the platform garnered thousands of followers and hundreds of thoughtful questions, according to McCullough. The first Issue Times racked up more than 100 million impressions.

"That's something we see, the community growing every day," she said. "That alone suggests the Tumblr community is watching and paying attention."

"The Tumblr community is watching and paying attention."

In terms of what's next, McCullough said the last aspect of Action on Tumblr is increasing IRL activations to ensure that tangible actions and conversations are happening offline.

And that starts with Tumblr's own physical offices in New York City. The company has recently hosted talks and meetings for various organizations, like Ladies Get Paid, a membership platform fighting the wage gap. Tumblr is also the new home for New America Foundation'sSocial Cinema series, screening monthly documentaries around social and political issues.

"Whether we're hitting the road or we're here at Tumblr, we're giving some more thought to how we can bring action to folks in real life," McCullough said.

The basis of Action on Tumblr is addressing fears and hate. But in the end, McCullough is hopeful about younger generations, who are figuring out how to give back and create change for the better.

"Giving them a place to discover that feels special, and feels needed," she said. "To give that a home makes me feel a lot of positivity about our users, and new ones to come."

BONUS: Watch this little girl bravely share her truth at an anti-Trump rally

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